Autoimmune Illness and Lyme Disease Recovery Guide by Katina I. Makris

Author:Katina I. Makris
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Skyhorse
Published: 2015-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

The principles of integrative medicine:

• A partnership between patient and practitioner in the healing process

• Appropriate use of conventional and alternative methods to facilitate the body’s innate healing response

• Consideration of all factors that influence health, wellness, and disease, including mind, spirit, and community as well as body

• A philosophy that neither rejects conventional medicine nor accepts alternative therapies uncritically

• Recognition that good medicine should be based in good science, be inquiry driven, and be open to new paradigms

• Use of natural, effective, less-invasive interventions whenever possible

• Use of the broader concepts of promotion of health and the prevention of illness as well as the treatment of disease

• Training of practitioners to be models of health and healing, committed to the process of self-exploration and self-development3”

Also in the same vein as integrative medicine is a growing term we have heard in the past three or four years, “functional medicine.” Functional medicine is similar in its philosophy to naturopathic medicine; however, it involves medical physicians who have taken on a new philosophy toward doctoring.

Please read this wonderful quote from the website of the Institute for Functional Medicine:

“Functional medicine is a personalized, systems-oriented model that empowers patients and practitioners to achieve the highest expression of health by working in collaboration to address the underlying causes of disease. It is an evolution in the practice of medicine that better addresses the healthcare needs of the twenty-first century. By shifting the traditional disease-centered focus of medical practice to a more patient-centered approach, functional medicine addresses the whole person, not just an isolated set of symptoms. Functional medicine practitioners spend time with their patients, listening to their histories and looking at the interactions among genetic, environmental, and lifestyle factors that can influence long-term health and complex, chronic disease. In this way, functional medicine supports the unique expression of health and vitality for each individual.

‘Disease is neither the starting point nor the end point of illness. It is a pathological process that may not be discovered until decades after the identification of an illness.’ This insight has been the impetus for many of the new approaches to disease prevention and treatment that have emerged over the last thirty to forty years. Most of us—scientists and physicians alike—would rather not wait until we have a diagnosable disease to address the underlying problems that, over time, cause the signs and symptoms that influence the development of illness and disease.

A major premise of functional medicine is that, using science, clinical wisdom, and innovative tools, we can identify many of the underlying causes of chronic disease and intervene to remediate the dysfunctions, both before and after frank disease is present. People may wonder (quite reasonably) why preventing and treating chronic disease effectively requires something different than is usually available in our very expensive healthcare system. Perhaps the most urgent reason is that a rapidly spreading epidemic of chronic disease has compromised the effectiveness of our healthcare system and threatens to bankrupt both national and global economies. Alarming projections suggest future generations may have shorter, less healthy lives if current trends continue unchecked.

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